---
title: Exodus 24:11
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/exodus-24-11/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/exodus-24-11.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Exodus 24:11
testament: OT
section: Law
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Exodus 24:11

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> But God did not lay His hand on the nobles of Israel; they saw Him, and they ate and drank.

## JW Usage

JWs handle Exodus 24:10-11 by arguing that the elders saw a representation of God, not God himself. The NWT's handling is revealing: verse 10 says "they saw the God of Israel" (straightforward seeing), but verse 11 shifts the Hebrew chazah ("to see, behold") to "they got a vision of the true God" — inserting the word "vision" to soften the encounter. The elders' eating and drinking in God's presence is treated as ceremonial, not as evidence of a physical divine encounter.

## Protestant Usage

Exodus 24:10-11 records that seventy elders of Israel "saw the God of Israel" and then "ate and drank" in his presence — a physical meal in the company of a visible divine person. The Hebrew verb chazah in verse 11 means "to see, behold" — the NWT's insertion of "vision" has no basis in the text. You do not eat and drink in a vision. If the Father has never been seen (John 6:46, John 1:18), yet the elders physically saw "the God of Israel" and survived, the person present must be the pre-incarnate Son. The NWT's handling of this passage exposes a pattern: where the plain text implies a visible divine person, the translation softens the language to preserve the doctrine that God is entirely invisible and unknowable apart from angelic mediation.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The New World Translation — Anonymous and Unqualified](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/nwt-reliability.md) — Can you trust a Bible translated by unnamed, untrained scholars? [NWT Translation]
- [Who Appeared to Abraham?](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/ot-christophany.md) — If no one has seen the Father, the OT appearances were Christ [Deity of Christ]